A Book Blog

Tag Archives: young adult

Banned Books Week seeks to increase public awareness about the challenging and banning of books that occurs every year. You can visit ala.org/bbooks to learn more and to see the lists of frequently challenged books by year.

One of my favorite banned books is To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. This book is on the list of banned and/or challenged classics as well as the top 10 frequently challenged books list for 2011. The reasons for the challenges are most often due to language and racism.

The novel is told from the point of view of six-year-old Scout Finch in 1930’s Alabama. She tells the story of her father, Atticus Finch, a lawyer defending a black man charged with the rape of a white woman.

Lee herself, born in 1926, grew up in 1930’s Alabama. I think the author does her best to capture that time through the eyes of a child. It provides no benefit to whitewash the world and the way it is or was. The point of supporting banned books is to support our right to read books that make the reader think critically and honestly.

Several books I read for school in middle and high school can be found on the frequently challenged lists. What is your favorite book from the banned book list?